


The Lonely Isle

by saliache



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Akallabêth, Gen, Tol Eressëa, asshole Numenor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-14 23:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1282738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saliache/pseuds/saliache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Akallabêth, and the downfall of Tol Eressëa, as told from the point of view of a character we will never see again, ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lonely Isle

Men marched upon Tol Eressea. Tall Men, with the dark hair of the ones who had called themselves the Noldor, and sea-grey eyes. Men in heavy armor, with great steel bows.

 “Run,” Mother said.

 I was almost a hundred, nearly a full woman grown. I could shoot, could fight, could sail. I did not want to run.

 I ran.

 It is half a day’s run to Alqualondë in the west; half a day’s run, in good conditions. It rained now, a heavy rain that turned the countryside to mud. It took me nearly two days to reach the western coast, two days of being harassed by enemy scouts, two days of turning back to see our beloved isle burning, to hear the tramp of innumerable booted feet not far behind. I would like to say that I made it in time to warn the city, our only fortified city; that would be a lie.

 I stumbled into the gatehouse near dusk, frightened nearly hysterical and covered in mud. I would later learn that they had thought me an orc or some other machination of the Men, at least until I opened my mouth and started wailing half-garbled pleas.

 It was, all in all, not an auspicious end to an inauspicious journey.

 We huddled there, in Alqualondë, for nearly a week as the Men of the West lay siege. There was nowhere to go. Even if the harbor had not been sealed, Numenorean warships lay in wait outside, with cannon that could bring down any of our vessels in a single fusillade. We were not fools.

 On the third day, Numenorean sorcerer-priests tried to sing down our walls. We heard their song, and for an entire day and night sang their cursed words away, until they stopped trying. Not everyone had the strength to sing so long.

 On the fifth day, their vessels tried to break through the harbor walls. We sacrificed a number of our own to set them aflame. Our harbor was breached, but they made no further attempts there.

 On the sixth day, they had recovered their cannon, and moved them to land. They pounded away for hours. Brute strength did what ill-gotten knowledge could not; Alqualondë fell. Again.

 The city was beautiful, white stone and nacre, gleaming sea-glass and sandy, sculpted towers. It was beautiful even as it burned, lit red and amber from within, hazed in dark, mallorn-scented smoke that blotted out the emerging stars. Mother chose to burn with it; many did.

 I was afraid to die.

 I ran; the Numenoreans chased us all, and took the ones they could capture alive. I know not for what; I do not want to know. But I had played in the sea-caves of Tol Eressëa as a child. I knew the hidden crevices that led to hidden caverns, and which ones had water to last a lifetime, and which one held tiny fish and shrimp that had never seen light.

 An interminable time passed, and I emerged to find the Numenoreans sailing away. Our island burned, what parts of it had not been taken by the Men to fuel their war machines. The dead lay everywhere. Ai, I do not wish to remember it.

 Perhaps I considered fleeing West, in the hope that there would be succor there. But I had been driven from the caves by the tremble of earth, and as I turned east I saw the stars fall.

 One by one they dropped out of the sky, burning wildly as they plummeted into the ocean. Great waves formed from the impact, and the east was already beginning to crumble into the sea. The earthquakes grew until I could no longer stand, and great Eagles came from the sky to take the few survivors to safety. And as they did, I turned my face toward the sky.

 Varda’s stars, the great navigational constellations, were gone. 


End file.
